TURKEY WANTS FAIR TREATMENT

Minister for EU Affairs and the Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said: "Turkey is the member of organizations such as EU Investment Bank, UEFA, Eurovision, European Security and Defense Policy and OECD to which EU is not a member. We risked our lives in Korea, Kosovo, Somali and in Afghanistan. We do not deserve to wait in the visa lines."

Egemen Bagis received the Culture, Youth, Press and Sports Commission of the Belgium Flemish Parliament at the EUSG Istanbul Office in Ortakoy.

Touching upon Turkey's EU accession negotiations, Bagis reminded that Turkey had applied to become a member of the EU 51 years ago and added that a date had been given for the negotiations to be opened 45 years after this application. Stating that remarkable progress was made recently for full membership, Bagis wanted EU to be more fair and equitable regarding Turkey's membership.

Egemen Bagis said: ‘We want EU to be more fair. We do not request any special advantage or any other extra thing. We just want to see that the same procedure applied for the other 27 countries would be applied for Turkey, as well.

In the past, there was some criticism that Turkey was a very poor country but this is not the case anymore. We are richer than some of the European countries. Compared with the EU countries, our economy has the biggest growth rate. While the average growth rate in Europe is 1.5 percent, Turkey has experienced 11 percent growth rate in the first quarter of this year.’

Pol de Witte, Ankara Ambassador of Belgium delivered a speech and said that Belgium supported Turkey’s EU accession.

Source: AA